Graphic: Cameras could be used to catch drivers who flout rules after Norwich city centre traffic shake-up

One of the biggest ever shake-ups in how traffic uses Norwich city centre will be stepped up within weeks, as it was revealed cameras could be used to catch and fine drivers who fail to take heed of the changes.

The £1.45m changes will ban cars from St Stephens Street and part of Surrey Street, while controversial changes to Chapel Field North will see that road made two-way.

Council officers have trumpeted the ‘Transport for Norwich’ scheme as a way to ease congestion in the centre of Norwich, with the current work to put a bus lane in Grapes Hill also part of the project.

With the scheme looking to ban general traffic from a number of streets, council bosses have revealed they want to install new cameras to catch any drivers who ignore the new regulations.

At a meeting of city and county councillors next week, members of the Norwich highways agency committee will be asked to agree to the principle of using cameras to enforce the new bus priority measures.

If the cameras are brought in, then drivers who still head down the roads once cars have been banned run the risk of being hit with a fixed penalty notice. That is likely to be £60, reduced to £30 if paid within 14 days and hiked to £90 if not paid within 28 days.

A spokeswoman for Norwich City Council said: “The nature of the St Stephens/Chapel Field North scheme means that it has to be enforced for the benefits of a reduction in traffic to be felt.

“Since bus access is a fundamental feature of the scheme, it is not possible to physically prevent general traffic from using these areas as well.

“The alternative is therefore enforcement through other means and so cameras have been proposed as what we feel is the most effective and viable option.

“As a package of changes, this will improve the reliability and efficiency of public transport services and make the city’s busy shopping streets safer and more pleasant places to be.”

As well as banning cars from St Stephens Street, the Transport for Norwich scheme will prevent all traffic, except buses, from Rampant Horse Street between Marks and Spencer and Debenhams by creating a bus gate on Rampant Horse Street. Traffic will also be stopped from crossing into Rampant Horse Street from Westlegate.

Chapel Field North will be widened for two-way traffic by removing the pavement on the Chapelfield Gardens side, with a new path created in the park.

Council officers say traffic would not be able to get into the city centre through Chapel Field North, because of the bus gate in Rampant Horse Street.

Little Bethel Street would also be shut to vehicles, with Cleveland Road and Bethel Street becoming two-way because of changes at Grapes Hill roundabout.

If cameras are introduced, there would probably be one in St Stephens Street and two in Rampant Horse Street.

Work on the scheme is earmarked to begin in July, with Chapel Field North set to be where the first work begins, to widen the carriageway by removing a pavement.

• What’s your view on the scheme and the use of cameras to enforce it? Write, giving full contact details, to Letters Editor, Prospect House, Rouen Road, Norwich NR1 1RE.

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Another smal point of tarffic generation, the ex Bingo Hall opposite Bonds will be turned into an inner city multistorey carpark, attarcting extra paying motorists and pollution into the City centre when they should be walking in, get some exercise. Norwich has ruined itself with giving access to cars and getting rid of the trams. This new multistorey should be opposed.

Norweich is 'too small' to have a tram, according to officers of City Hall , NCC, and the bus company who paid a paltry 5k to have a study done some years back.
If anybody is taking the City for a ride its the incessant red Oligarchs who have reigned for far too long.

Why can't Norwich have a bus service like York? They have modern "tram" buses which are single deck articulated low floor buses with three wide doors, also air conditioning and very smooth ride. They have bus stop that are the same level as the bus floors with easy access for the elderly and pushchairs. Also, they have a conductor in the city centre sections of route which means the buses don't stop for hours while the drivers collect the fares. Surely there's someone in the council who could go and look at what York have done, then come back and get rid of Worst Group with their clapped out double deckers and give us a modern bus service?

Interesting...I left an "anti City Council" post yesterday and it's not there today...looks to me like the EDP is in the pocket of the Council.. No doubt we've heard of the "wheel within the wheel" so I guess this one will be a victim of the SS Moderator.....but I can always publicise the facts at club and parish council meetings. Come on EDPEEN, act for the People: your paying Readers.

If you can't follow the rules of the road then you should face some sort of penalty. Look at the road signs and do as you are told. You drive to a new part of the country, you use the signs there; what's the difference?

St Stephens is a nightmare for buses and cars i agree, something has to be done otherwise the whole city will grind to a halt,.Castle Meadow is nearly as bad but people need to get in city somehow.As i only live about mile and a half out of centre, i normally walk its often quicker but do get bus home.
But i do agree with person who said we need a decent bus service,. Remove the rubbish First Bus with their elderly buses that break down so frequently and their rubbish routes that are far too long and get a proper company to run a proper service, Konnect seem a lot better and their buses are clean and newish and their drivers seem pleasant. First bus should stay in Scotland where they belong,local companies run local routes better.

Trust Norwich and Norfolk Councils to P**s around with the traffic system whoch should have been sorted oh about 20 years ago. Both Councils stop wasting money, come up with an idea make it reality, thenl leave it alone. Not P**s around a few years later to realise you have fecked everything up and your plans do NOT work . Jesus Christ, and to think of the idiots who voted Labour who continue to screw everything up in this so called Fine City !

The militant council at it's finest!!! What a joke - vote them out!
I love the fact that cars can still get to City Hall :-) Could that have anything to do with the fact that the council people coming up with these rules want to drive to their nice easy job and their nice big car park? Surely they should 'ear from the front' and get the bus in?

Whilst this might make the city a more pleasant place to walk it will do nothing to enhance the likelihood of those of us living in the suburbs actually spending real money in the centre. Out of town shopping and even more importantly internet shopping will yet again win out. It is already difficult to justify the extra cost of shopping in the city rather than on line - just how many jobs is Norwich setting out to lose?

What a shame Councillors cannot find something useful to do.
I am heartily sick of this stupid prioritisation of buses and cycles.
Some bus priority lanes e.g. Dereham Rd and Wroxham road rarely have a bus on them.
I could see the sense in bus priority if we had a super fast, clean, cheap bus service, but we do not.
Meanwhile, the poor motorist , that is the vast bulk of people who come into the city, are to be held in even longer queues and fined at every possible opportunity.
These madmen( sorry, men and women) will not be happy until no one bothers to shop in the city, because they refuse to take the bus, cannot ride a bike, and refuse to be dictated to by those power mad councillors.
Thank god for Amazon, with luck I can ovoid using city shops ever again.
Other cities are busy installing high speed clean efficient tram services , to quickly get people in and out of their shopping centres and work places, whilst are councillors try to keep out of the city the vast majority of those with money to spend.
It seems to me that visionaries like this, should be given priority in the next round of government redundancies.
If Highways could concentrate on improving the quality of our roads, which are in a dire state, instead of coming up with unnecessary and expensive ways to close our city we would be much better off.

Great, sooner the better, this is a good scheme no matter what these moaning minnies say. The city centre won't miss them and will thrive without them and their metal boxes. Other cityies have had pedestrian and bus schemes for years and they work well, as big retailers well know.

Obviously the adjudicator doesn't like me, as my last comment failed! Try again - Goodbye citycentre - the council strike again.Stop Press - you missed one letter in your comment - fine(d) city. I do most of my shopping now out of town or on the internet anyway. maybe this may get past the censor (sorry, adjudicator?)

Sadly the council will not rest until the centre of Norwich has been turned into something reminiscent of the city centre circa 1880 complete with horses, carts and gentle folk wearing flat caps and bonnets.
Total idiots leading the council with carte blanche to do whatever they wish. Oh, and we pay for it all so maybe theyre arent quite so idiotic after all.......

Take traffic away from St Stephens area, I understand that, but then make Chapelfield North two way and as for the bus lane on Grapes Hill. I envisage big issues, although I await to see how it affects life for those of us, who use Stephens, Surrey Street and Westlegate.

This will totally make doing deliveries in the City centre a total nightmare, I for one will not deliver into the City now. I live in Norwich and have done for many years,and I can not remember the last time I went into the City to do personal shopping, everything is done online from Shops outside the City, its alot easier and alot less time consuming and thus Norwich traders have lost my business and I would imagine this is happen more now the roads will be in chaos...

To be honest, to install cameras so soon is cruel. I confess, i still struggle occationally with the one-way system already is place, despite having worked in a variety of places in the city over the past 5 years. People ARE going to be confused by these changes for a short period, they're not going to shun the changes purposely, they're just going to be making money off the fines when innocent people make a wrong turn or miss sight of a new sign.

kfoto - they're removing 3 disabled bays from St Stephens and 4 from Surrey Street. Disabled visitors will have to use Brigg Street. And, guess what? They're always full there, as are the ones in Surrey Street. So where will they park? Hardly making it easy for the less mobile visitors, are they?

There is a plan here and it's been ongoing for some years, the plan is to stop cars going into the city, I think that's been clear for sometime. This will have a knock on effects, it will empty the city of most of the shoppers and they will either go online or out of town shopping areas, the only people who will go into the city will be people who work there and older people, the older people get free bus travel and have all day to wait for a bus. These changes will just help it along it's path to an empty city. I hope the local council will be proud of themselves once they've completed thier task. Buses are not the answer to the public transport requirements for a city like Norwich but it's the only thing being backed by the council and it seems anything the bus company wants it gets. I'm leaving Norwich, it's my home, I was born here, I love this City, but I'm fed up with seeing it torn apart by single minded idiots who are entrusted with looking after it. Norwich City Council, YOU HAVE A LOT TO ANSWER FOR.

Bet the council planners did not think about the disabled drivers who park in Theatre Street whether they be locals or visitors. Exiting will mean 3 point turns or U-turns if you have tight steering. Imagine if the all the spaces are taken up of an evening by theatre patrons and they all leave together in dark and inclement weather! That will undoubtedly cause some accidents.
These road changes will for sure cause more problems for visitors who rely on their sat navs and Google roadmaps will be out of date!

I take it that the money obtained by the Council by catching people in cars driving down St Stephens, will be given the shop keepers for loss of trade!, then whole scheme is just another way to rip the motorist off, and throttle the City's businesses.

I drove a bus for 20 year no bus lanes we kept on time. bus lanes make more congestion so they make more bus lanes and so on and on.????? sack the planers make the buses cheap or free to ride on no congestion !!!! easy

An outrageous expense to fine and punish people, the typical City Hallreaction, why not install modern bus gates that are operated by the drivers of buses and taxis? What of disabled drivers wanting to use St. Stephens? But if you don't like our comments here, dearest moderator, you can just delete them. Mind not the multiple posters who speak your language.

A year or two ago I attended a consultation evening run by Broadland District Council and inevitably talked about both the housing and NDR. I was informed by their staff that they would use a mixture of stick and carrot to open up the roads for buses. This included restricted car use on roads such as Barrack Street and Salhouse Road. They declined to answer when I asked about congestion charging! It will come!! The Beyond Green housing development off Salhouse Road says in its documentation that they want to restrict private car usage (and by implication ownership) and want residents to join car clubs instead. Its all starting to fit together.

The city Council just don't get it! The situation when people say "Ooh. let's take the expensive, unreliable, polluting and sick-making bus instead of the car" is just not going to happen.............Now, a supertram might be different!

Strange how this is all coming out just days after an election when the main parties were condemning the far right politics of others. Yet days later feel comfortable putting jack boots on.
No wonder we the electorate are becoming fed up with the antics of these clowns & voting for a party that has as much cynicism of British politics as we do.

Nobby - from the Newmarket Road you'll have to turn right onto Queens Road at the St Stephens roundabout, left into All Saints Green, left into Westlegate, then right into Red Lion. That's assuming, of course, you can filter into the traffic coming round from Golden Ball who also want to go into Westlegate. Of course, the main problem with St Stephens, Red Lion and Rampant Horse isn't so much the cars as the timing of the lights and the buses double-parking.

So if they're banning traffic from going down St Stephens Street and then from Westlegate to Rampant Horse Street and also traffic via Red Lion Street as well. How the hell are we supposed to park in Castle Mall Farmers Avenue entrance by the Bell pub?
Why not give some grace in terms of first time offence. As someone has already mentioned it is going to take some time to get used to the new road system. Only fine the persistent offenders who point blank refuse to take notice of the ban.
I still don't think this will make a blind bit of difference to the punctuality of the buses either it is a total waste of money.

It is going to be really confusing for drivers for months - especially those who rarely come into the city, and all they want to do is fine them- give people a CHANCE!! Typical council all about the money, I too will continue to shop on line avoiding the expensive parking bus charges and confusing road systems, but that will keep the local council happy.The government claims to want to keep our shopping centers alive but with rubbish policies like this it is only pushing people out.

Norwich city council, don't you just love them? these people can't even manage to maintain their properties, they treat their tenants like dirt and now they want to rip off motorists even more than they do now, the traffic system in Norwich is a joke, when no one wants to come to Norwich, will they be surprised?

I think the Council have this absolutely spot on. There are far too many cars in the city and it just makes for a total eyesore on such a beautiful place. I am not an environmental fanatic, and I too, am a driver who lives in the city but to have all of these cars in such a small space, which Norwich is, is becoming ridiculous. And for all of you people who claim that it will affect shopping and spending in the city because you won't be able to get into the city, you are being ridiculous quite frankly. The roads they are thinking of banning cars from, you don't abandon your cars on these roads to go shopping so what difference does it make?! The car parks you would use normally will still be accessible after these changes. The changes are to make Norwich City centre a better place to be less stressful, and less stress is surely going to lead people to spend more time spending money as they won't feel rushed to get in and get out again.

"Pete" - how will the NDR make any difference to people using their cars in the city centre? Unless you're a fanboy of the council banning all private vehicle ownership inside the NDR (what seems to be their Master Plan).

Here we go again! Car hating Labour City Council making things 'grimmer' for the motorist. It's already bad enough with the present stupid road changesrestrictionsblocking off escape routes (side roads to circumvent traffic jams), but this is the last straw.....we won't be coming to shop or do business in the city any more (TRADERS PLEASE NOTE!) and will go to 'out of edge of city' establishments, or places such as WroxhamAylshamCromer where there is less hostility to the motorist. CITY COUNCIL ALSO PLEASE NOTE: aren't you preaching 'save the planet' which presumably doesn't include the environmental impact of more pollution by motorists circling the restrictions or travelling to out of city locations.. Goodbye shopping in Norwich city centre.....PUT UP PARKING CHARGES AND PARK AND RIDE FARES AGAIN TO ELIMINATE MORE CITY CENTRE SHOPPERS.
Oh! Don't forget to provide more 'cycle tracks' at huge cost to the taxpayer, so the budding "Barry Wiggins lookalikes" can ignore them (and still clog the highway) as they do in places such as Earlham Green Lane and Bluebell Road.

Think another problem is some people nowadays want to park IN the shop if they could. On any saturday norwich union charge £2 for all day parking off queens road, and you use them two things below your waist to get to the shops. I can only see st stephens used as a way to get to castle mall and nothing else.

Buses moving in and out and pedestrians crossing the road at the bumps make St Stephens a road to avoid in a car. Any road user who breaks the rules such as jumping a red light deserves a ticket. If a motorist is caught a letter will be sent to the registered keeper. It is much harder to enforce the rules for cyclists.

Canaryboy71: you sum it up nicely when you describe St Stephens as a rat run. In the 60s it was widened to be a major traffic throughfare and the surrounding roads designed to distribute the traffic to their destinations. St Stephens has become a traffic jam because many of the surrounding roads have been changed and their usage restricted. Thus St Stephens has become a road to no where, not a rat run at all.

Yay lets go for the car drivers again
But how about using the cameras to name and shame all the cyclists who Jump red lights ...cycle on the path ... Go the wrong way up one way streets and generally think its fine to break the law

"Norwich - a fine city". That's the slogan, so the city council are taking it to heart. "Come to Norwich and you'll be fined". Surely you realise that the city council won't be happy until there are no cars within the inner ring road, and a congestion charge within the outer ring road?

Cameras to catch anyone who dares to take a car near the city centre. Lack of car park spaces and those that exist are very expensive. Park and rides that don't run Sunday's and bank holidays. I'm sure all the out of town shopping venues are rubbing their hands with glee. Well done city council. Another great decision designed around nothing more than money making

Well done Norwich City Council. You have come up with a new plan which will make me even less likely to come into the city to shop and more likely to shop online. Another nail in the coffin for the commercial heart of our city.

Such a good idea banning cars from st stephens. All it is , is a rat-run to the castle mall car park. i never use st stephens because its always congested and serves no purpose. Also you will always get people complain about fines. But i always find these are the same people who want to break the rules. So its simple......obey the changes....or pay up.

Why is it that every plan the council comes up with involves generating more money? What next......Fined for wanting to leave Norwich via car??? Its bad enough the amount of very poor roadworks being done that inevitably will end up needing repair work within 3 months causing more lane closures on our very busy roads. Has the council thought about what this plan is actually going to achieve??? Less traffic in the city center...Isnt this traffic going into the city because the want to spend money in the shops which means paying excessive carparking fees in council owned carparks. Just shows that councils really are run by morons who act before they think!

Well that's clinched it for me ! I won't even start to try and understand which and what roads the council wants to ban cars from! I just won't even attempt to shop or use facilities in the city of Norwich ever again! To make it simple for the dictatorial council why not put cameras on all entry points on the city limits fin everyone and then they'll have even more money ! What a Fine City Norwich is !